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Saturday, May 25, 2013

The importance of Russia to the Future of the World

There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, but seem to tend towards the same end.I allude to the Russians and the Americans. . . . Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe. -- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Part I (originally published in 1835), edited and abridged by Richard D. Heffner, New York: Signet Classic, 1st edition, 2001, pgs. 141-2.

Is post-Lincoln America the most important nation in the world, the one poised to do the most good for all the peoples of the earth?Those who believe the New England-Puritan dogma that the U.S. is a ‘city on a hill’ with a God-given mission (and right) to remake the world in its own image will say Yes.Those who have escaped that heresy and looked into history a bit more deeply and widely will come to a different answer: Russia.

That statement will no doubt produce shock, anger, disbelief, and all manner of other exclamations of surprise in the minds and hearts and mouths of those raised on a steady diet of ‘American exceptionalism’.This is understandable in the light of the stigma still attached to the Russian people because of the barbarity of atheistic communism that dominated them for so much of the 20th century.That, however, was an aberration, a forced subjugation to outsiders who despised the centuries-old traditional Christian culture of the bulk of the Russian people, which we in the South know something about.But since we have seen the direction of the world under so-called American leadership - crushing debt, war following upon war, slavery to international corporations, government rules written to manage every aspect of life - it is nevertheless a notion that needs to have a proper hearing in all its dimensions, physical and spiritual.

I. Russia’s Physical Importance

Dr Joseph Farrell makes the case briefly for why Russia is the most significant place in the world, in terms of physical location and natural resources:

‘In short, I think what we are looking at here is as much a geopolitical crisis as an economic one, and the stakes are quite high. By way of background, we would do well to remember one overarching geopolitical principle adhered to by the Western oligarchs since it was first enunciated by British geopolitician Sir Halford MacKinder: He who controls the Eurasian heartland (by which he meant Eastern Europe and a considerable portion of Eurasian Russia) controls the World Island (by which he meant the great world island comprised of Europe, Asia, and Africa). He who controls the world island, with the bulk of the world’s resources, controls the world. It is important to recall that as recently as Zbbnw Brzznsk’s (that’s Zbigniew Brzezinski to those unfamiliar with my vowelless disdain for the man) The Grand Chessboard this geopolitical dogma of the Western oligarchs has simply been “revised and extended” but not abandoned.

‘Remember that struggle for the Eurasian Heartland, for it explains much of modern history: the turn of the German General Staff from the West to the East during World War One, the harsh terms imposed by Imperial Germany on Russia at Russia’s surrender in 1918 and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; it explains Hitler’s obsession with Lebensraum and eastward expansion at Russia’s expense, and in short, the basic tension between those two powers. Bear Germany and Russia in mind, because we will return to it in this article, for the nightmare of western geopolitics (besides Cardinal Richlieu’s nightmare of a unified German state) is a rapprochement between those two states. This in large part explains the shockwaves felt in Whitehall and the City of London when Hitler and Stalin concluded their infamous 1939 Non-Aggression Pact.’

‘We know for a fact that the 1917 Revolution in Russia was organised and implemented by the Western Powers in order to destroy Russia, its rival, one which, in their own words, would have become more powerful than any Western country by 1950. Therefore, British and the Americans sent Trotsky and the Germans sent Lenin to carry out the Revolution in Russia. We also now know that the order to assassinate the Tsar and his family actually came directly from New York – just as the Tsar himself had predicted it would, some ten years before. The Soviet Union was a purely Western foundation, founded on the Western ideology of Marxism.

‘However, in creating the Soviet Union, the West made a strategic mistake, a rod for its own back, because of course the Soviet Union became very powerful, the second ‘Superpower’. This was not as the West had intended, for the Nazis were supposed to destroy the Soviet Union. The West had not counted on historic patriotism and sense of national identity, a movement far deeper than the superficial Soviet Union. Therefore, when the Soviet Union fell, over twenty years ago now, the West’s greatest fear was that a free and independent Russia would be born, that, having thrown off its shell, the tortoise underneath it would turn out to be a hare. Hence the ‘Wild East’ chaos which the West encouraged in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s with its ‘divide and rule’ policies and privatisation. This was nothing more than institutionalised theft from the people.

‘The problem for the West came in the year 2000 when Russia finally recognised that it had to recover from this ‘Wild East’ Capitalism, the Mafia State, and set out on the very, very long path of recovery under President Putin. Therefore, the West had to destroy Putin. In some respects, he is an easy target because he rules over a post-Soviet country, still full of that corruption and mafia mentality introduced there in the 1990s. Therefore, it is easy to attack Putin’s Russia (although it is doubtful if the amount of corruption there is any greater in reality than in the EU or the USA) and Putin has been lamentably slow and weak in tackling corruption.

‘Thus, what really upsets the Western elite is the fear that Russia may yet free itself from this corruption and the former Russian Empire largely reconstituted in a Eurasian Confederation. The only focus of Russian unity, the multinational Russian Orthodox Church, is also the only force which can overcome post-Soviet amorality. Both Zbigniew Brzezinski and Madeleine Albright have made it clear that they are utterly opposed to the restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church and want to dismember Russia – much as Hitler planned to do. So Western so-called ‘NGO’s and Evangelical ‘missionaries’ have done their best to undermine the authority of the Church, even publishing attacks on the Church in the ‘Economist’ and the ‘Harvard Business Review’!’

Following Fr Andrew’s cue, then, let us transition from the material to the ghostly.

II. Russia’s Spiritual Importance

Even more important than Russia’s vast potential for material power and sway is her Christian influence.This is where she will do her greatest good for the world, if she will repent of her past sins and strive once more to be the Lord’s servant with all her heart.A prophecy of some 1,000 years ago at St Sabbas’s Monastery makes this clear (as do other similar prophecies throughout the centuries):

‘At various times this great people [the Russians] will fall into sin and for this will be chastised through considerable trials. In about a thousand years [i.e. in the 1900s] this people, chosen by God, will falter in its Faith and its standing for the Truth of Christ. It will become proud of its earthly might and glory, will cease to seek the Kingdom and will want paradise not in Heaven but on this sinful earth.

‘However not all this people will tread this broad and pernicious path, though a substantial majority will, especially its governing class. On account of this great fall, a terrible fiery trial will be sent from on high to this people which will despise the ways of God. Rivers of blood shall flow across their land, brother shall slay brother, more than once famine shall visit the land and gather its dread harvest, nearly all the churches and other holy places shall be destroyed or suffer sacrilege, many shall perish.

‘A part of this people, rejecting iniquity and untruth, will pass over the borders of their homeland and will be dispersed like unto the people of the Jews all over the world. Nevertheless the Lord will not show His wrath on them to the uttermost. The blood of thousands of martyrs will cry to the heavens for mercy. A spirit of sobriety will grow among this chosen people and they will return to God. At last this period of cleansing trial, appointed by the Righteous Judge, will come to an end, and once more Holy Orthodoxy will shine forth and those northern lands will be resplendent with the brightness of a faith reborn.

‘This wonderful light of Christ will shine forth from there and enlighten all the peoples of the earth. This will be helped by that part of the people providentially sent ahead into the diaspora, who will create centres of Orthodoxy - churches of God all over the world. Christianity will then be revealed in all its heavenly beauty and fullness. Most of the peoples of the world will become Christian. And for a time a period of peace, prosperity and Christian living will come to the whole world...

‘And then? Then, when the fullness of time has come, a great decline in faith will begin and everything foretold in the Holy Scriptures will occur. Antichrist will appear and the world will end’(Archbishop Seraphim of Chicago, ‘Sud'by Rossii’, Pravoslavnij Vestnik, (The Orthodox Herald), № 87, January-February, 1996 (Canada, in Russian); Fomin, Rossia pered Vtorym Prishestviem (Russia before the Second Coming), Sergiev Posad, 1994, pgs. 316-318; translated in Fr Andrew Phillips, Orthodox Christianity and the English Tradition, English Orthodox Trust, 1995, pgs. 299-300.Quoted in Vladimir Moss, The Restoration of Romanity:Essays in Orthodox Political Theology, 2012, Pgs. 221-2.Accessed 24 May 2013.PDF copy available at http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/downloads/373_THE_RESTORATION_OF_ROMANITY_3_.pdf).

III.What about the Tsar?

Given all the slander heaped upon the Tsars of Russia in standard history books, it would not be surprising to find some readers who might be less than enthusiastic about their reappearance.Be not afraid.Returning to Fr Andrew Phillips, he was asked in an interview, ‘Do you look for a restoration of the Orthodox Tsar in the future and is Orthodoxy intrinsically monarchist ultimately in its political leanings?’

He answered:

‘The Orthodox Churches live and have lived in all countries and under all sorts of regimes: Pagan, Communist, post-Soviet, Fascist, Capitalist, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim etc. However, history shows that the Church is able to influence society for the best when there is an Orthodox monarch.

‘Here we must emphasise that the Orthodox use of the word ‘monarch’ means something quite different from the Western usage. In the West it means a right-wing figure, who is extremely powerful and rich and uses that power and wealth to exploit for egotistical purposes, a kind of permanent Tony Blair or any other self-deluded narcissistic megalomaniac. Conversely, in Orthodox language, a monarch means a popular monarch, whose power and wealth exist only for the people’s benefit. His sovereignty is the reflection of the people’s sovereignty. Christian monarchy is where the people are the guarantor of the monarchy and vice versa. That is quite different from the absolutist and despotic monarchies with which Western history is littered. In 1917 Russia fell because of thoroughly corrupt and self-serving aristocrats, oligarchs as we would call them today, who connived with foreign powers, overthrew the monarchy and betrayed the monarch-loving peasants and workers, whom they ruthlessly exploited.

‘Prophecies, which are always conditional, clearly state that, if the whole Russian nation repents, a suitable candidate will appear to be Tsar again, just as in 1613 after the Polish invasion. All Russian Orthodox, and all conscious Non-Russian Orthodox, look forward to this possible restoration, because it will change the whole future of the world for the better, rebalancing it and turning it away from its present, suicidal course.’

To help the reader grasp just what Russia really is, a poem by the Russian poet Sergei Bekhteyev, ‘The Tsar’s Russia’, translated by Fr Andrew, is presented below.For poems often express truths better than prose.

‘The Tsar’s Russia’

(Nice, France, 30 May 1952; nearly 34 years after the martyrdom of the last Tsar, St Nicolas II, and his family at the hands of the Bolsheviks)

The Tsar’s Russia is meekness and lowliness,

Ardent prayers before the icons centuries old,

Thirst for repentance and sweet all-forgiveness,

Brave sacrifice in the noble battle bold.

The Tsar’s Russia is the speaking of church bells,

Merry joy at the welcome with bread and salt,

Amid the sleeping pines, monks’ ancient log cells,

Lips that whisper of deep-held love without fault.

The Tsar’s Russia - the service of the nation,

The firm guardian of order and of peace,

Friendship of her peoples and every station,

The age-old surplus generous enough for ease.

The Tsar’s Russia - the life of the tales of yore,

Harmony of family life, freedom’s order,

Our mighty tongue, life lived as ever before,

Bravery and courage in the dance taught her.

The Tsar’s Russia is faith in the soldiers’ feat,

In triumph and glory of rule wise and royal,

In the graced destiny sent from heaven’s seat,

To the great home of honest service and toil.

The Tsar’s Russia is help for the poor brother,

Valiant defence from threat of foreign land,

The tender embrace of the happy mother,

The tears that are wiped away by the kind hand.

The Tsar’s Russia – this is our fair native song,

The endless high road leading to every sight,

The Tsar’s Russia is Holy Rus great and strong,

She Who believes in God, She Who seeks the right.

This poem and two others like it by the same author are available here:

Seeing all this - the decline of Washington City and much of the West into ever deeper corruption of body and soul, and the slow rise of Russia from a terrible pit of darkness back to her Christian moorings - the South has a decision to make:Continue in league with and under the control of Washington City, or separate from that vile place and begin cultivating ties with the better parts of Russia, such as the Church, the villages, and the royal family, and of the other nations of the Slavic world (Serbia, Romania, et al.).Is it not better to suffer with the righteous in their struggles than to live a life of ease in the comfortable cities of the wicked?